Clouser Coach

Things at home are a bit of a mess at the moment, and this is the primary reason why I didn't add any pictures to the last post. I've done a little cleaning and now have a bit of space to display my most recent acquisition for some photos.

Other than the model itself, this was the only thing in the box. It is a list of changes made to the design of the coach and combine models. The coach I purchased is of the later design, while the combine is of the earlier casts.

The rubber bands are prototypical.

One of the 2-56 screws that holds the floor to the rest of the model. On the older models, a threaded rod connected to the roof penetrated the floor and was held in place by a tiny nut.

The level of detail in the Clouser models is incredible, and the fact that his name is still a byword attests to that. That said I have noticed one error with the coach. There is one stack on the roof which (correct me if I'm wrong) I believe is/was connected to the hot water heating system in the car. From all the pictures I've viewed of the 150-164 and 165-169 series&mdsah;which were virtually identical—the stack on the model is on the opposite side of the roof from those on the prototypes. According to the CERA bulletin (either Interurban to Milwaukee or Route of the Electroliners, I forget which) cars 159, 160, and 164, and cars 165 and 167 were converted to electric heat, so removing the stack all together and modeling one of these five cars would fix that problem.

The stack in question and its (approximate) placement on the prototype.

Another Acquisition

Unfortunately the form 5 coupler mentioned in the previous post will not be ready in time for the O scale meet. There are still some aspects of the design that need to be resolved before I am able to print them. Given the amount of time before the O scale meet and associated open houses, even if the design was finished this very instant, the prototype still wouldn’t arrive in time.

There is, however, some good news to report. I attended a swap meet held at the DuPage County Fair Grounds in Wheaton earlier today. Generally these things don’t yield much (if anything) for O scale traction and I came expecting this. Ten minutes into the show I came across a Clouser North Shore Line coach body and you better believe I didn’t pass it up!

I also came across a pair of Yellow Book MTH 3200 series "L" cars. I’m not a 3-rail collector, although I do have several sets of the MTH 3200 series cars (excluding the pair that I intend to 2-rail). The Yellow Book cars are signed for Midway and this matches my four-car set. I figured that if I’m able to get my hands on a pair of the 3200 “silver” bodies, I wouldn’t need to cut up my current pair and if I got these I’d have the option to run an eight car Midway train with car numbers that aren’t duplicates. So I got these too.

The main victory of the day, though, was that Clouser body. The car represents one of the early steel coaches, either the 150-164 series or the nearly identical 165-169 series. (I haven’t yet decided which series this car will fall into.) Unlike the combine I got from eBay, the coach did not come with any detail parts. Also of not is that the car is one of the later castings of the kit. The roof of the combine is removable via a pair of small nuts that are tightened beneath the floor. The coach has a removable floor which is held in place by eight 2-56 screws. These are much harder to lose and far easier to replace than the tiny nuts on the combine!

Looks like projects are beginning to stack up on the Dunsel Line!

Time to Slow Down?

I try to keep my eyes open for another 1-50 series "L" car or two so that I can move forward with my Skokie Swift set. I'm also constantly on the lookout for more CA&E rolling stock. And yet I don't find either of these, but I manage within three weeks to acquire two O scale North Shore Line cars. The new car arrived today.

It's a 250-256 series combine which was produced by Bill Clouser. The quality (which is a given) is exceptional. The body is missing equipment (it was made that way) but the model came with—as far as I can tell—a complete set of exterior detail pieces. The only thing it's missing are poles, motors, trucks, and an interior. I'll need to determine the general era of the car, given the ventilators on the roof.

A side-by-side comparison of the ends of the two cars.

The roof doesn't seem to come off. Neither does the car floor. I haven't tried too hard out of fear of damaging the model.

Something else also arrived today.

Yup. More North Shore stuff. This time a pair of Walthers North Shore car ends. Still in the packaging. The printed price is $1.95. That's not quite what I paid! Currently I have no plans for these, but, you never know. Definitely could be useful down the road.